This is the style of headdress I wanted to recreate. From “Young girl with an astronomical instrument”, by Jan Gossaert, c. 1520-1540
There are some interesting things about this hood which might have been more common that we think. The bag is not really attached to the cornet (billiment) it slips over the cornet and has the upper row of pearls. The white cornet seems to be a single piece but if you look closely to the side you can see the edge of the bag.
Because that part of the bag is the same fabric as the cornet they look like one piece. This would give the wearer a chance to have several bags for one cornet and could have change them out to match their gowns.
This is how I approached the hood so I could make one for my niece, shown here.
This is how it looked from the back. The pearls on the edge, the white fabric the pearls are sewn onto, the red velvet bias band and the bag from the gown fabric are all part of the removable bag which is added on at the very last over the cornet.
Pictured here is the inside of the coronet showing some large hairpins that are sewn on the the edge of the coronet and will slip into the braid to anchor the hood. There is also a chin strap which has a hook on the edge which slips into an eye on the inside edge of the coronet near the point. See below where I show the hairstyle which best supports this type of headdress.
Picture of the coronet in place without the bag. I used some metallic wired ribbon for the lower part of the coronet. It was gathered slightly and folded over and into the inner arch of the coronet. The pearls were sewn on to cover the edge of the ribbon.
Hood with the bag slipped in place over the cream satin part of the cornet.
Close-up of bag over the coronet on a stand.
In a perfect world my niece’s hair would have been this long but she got it cut right before Faire that year so I had to pull it back and use false braids and not have a center part. Ideally if hair is about this long…. First take a piece of 1″ wide bias tape about 1 yard long and bobby pin the center to the top center of the head.
Then take each half of the hair and make two low ponytails with covered rubber bands.
This is how it should look from the back.
Then braid each ponytails with the bias tape as part of the braid.
Then use the bias tape to bring the braids back up to the center top of the head and continued the bias around until they come back to the lower center and tie them off.
If the hair is not long enough to fill in the center section add an extra braid. Pinning it into place with large bobby pins.
This is what it should look like from the side. Notice that the braid is not really very far forward behind the ears. If the braids are too far forward the coronet sticks right straight up, it should really slope backwards at a fairly low angle.
The pins will anchor the cornet into the braids.
This is how it looks without the bag part of the headdress. See how the extra hair and braids support the coronet.
This is what it should look like from the front. If you go back to the 16th C painting you can see just how much of the hair should show and how far back the headdress should sit. ~2-3″ back from the hairline.